Right-leaning journalist Mark Judge knows how movies can change hearts and minds: It’s why he imagined a film festival dedicated to stories exposing the horrors of Communism. 

Think “The Killing Fields” (1984), “Red Dawn” (1984) and “The Lives of Others” (2006), arguably the most consequential takedown of collectivist ideology.

Judge was so committed to the project that he vowed to screen the films on a “sheet hanging in my backyard,” he recently told Just The News with a laugh. That won’t be necessary thanks to The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

The group is sponsoring the inaugural Anti-Communist Film Festival, running Oct. 1–4 at the Victims of Communism Museum in Washington, D.C. The event showcases films that amplify its historic failures.

Judge is a journalist, not a film festival veteran. It took time to secure the licensing for the films in play, including a delay in snagging approval to screen 2016’s “Hail, Caesar!” a comic twist on the topic starring Josh Brolin, Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson.

“It’s not out of the realm of possibility that the Coen brothers [who directed the film] are looking at the pitch,” Judge says, looking back. “At the last minute, we got it ... We didn’t want to slog through the depressing hell scape of Communism … .We wanted one comedy.”

Another surprise? A 1982 Disney thriller, “Night Crossing,” based on families that escaped East Germany via a homemade hot-air balloon.

It wasn’t easy securing a venue, snagging a sponsor and raising money for the festival, but Judge says the Democrats’ lurch to the socialist left made it essential.

“The timing is absolutely perfect,” he says, adding a cultural impact can be made far more easily than greenlighting a film on the topic. 

“It’s extremely expensive to make a movie ... or you could spend a couple of thousand in licensing to show 'Trial' and 'On the Waterfront' while encouraging up-and-coming filmmakers.”

While the festival showcases such obvious choices as “The Lives of Others,” films like the 1955 drama “Trial” with Glenn Ford reveal another element of Communism. The story follows a Mexican lad accused of rape and murder, whose trial is manipulated by a Communist organizer for his fundraising scheme.

Anti-Communist films thrived during the 1950s – think “I Was a Communist For the FBI” (1951), “My Son John” (1952) and “Man on a Tightrope” (1953). Hollywood swung decidedly to the Left a decade later, and the spigot mostly dried up, Judge says.

Now, with the ideology making a political comeback, Hollywood has mostly ignored the topic.

Planning the event hit some roadblocks, from the licensing struggles to one theater backing out with no explanation. Judge initially connected with The AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, a venue he often visits for festival fare.

He told AFI he didn’t want his event to be a “political rally,” which he said helped seal the deal initially. Then, a few weeks later, he received a lawyerly message from AFI saying it couldn’t accommodate the screenings as planned.

“They’re a nonprofit,” Judge said. “In their mission statement, it says to educate the public.” He asked if there was “one day in 365 days” that might work for the screening.

“They never responded,” he says.

Judge says the festival also addresses a chronic complaint from conservatives. Progressives hold sway over Hollywood, leveraging films’ soft cultural power in ways that the GOP could only dream about.

A festival, he argues, can impact the culture more than a thousand white papers.

Judge says the festival’s breakthrough moment came when Eric Patterson, president and CEO of The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, reached out to him. 

Patterson said the foundation had had internal talks about tapping pop culture to spread its message about Communism.

“Film is so powerful in telling stories, particularly to this generation," he said. "So much of their narrative of life are mediated through moving pictures, not text, not still pictures but through movies."

Hollywood has spent decades exploring the Nazi nightmare but far less time exploring the fallout from Communism, he says. The problem persists, witness this year’s update on “Animal Farm.” The animated film re-imagined George Orwell’s cautionary tale as a warning about capitalism, not Communism.

Patterson wants more than just a second Anti-Communist Film Festival in D.C. next year. He sees the event spreading to other cities.

We didn’t see us as owning the concept but generating the spark that can be picked up" elsewhere, he says, adding the costs to establish a short festival are modest by most standards, “just a few thousand dollars.”

Judge has sympathy for younger voters who find comfort in the promises of Democrat Socialists of America superstars like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

“These young socialists and DSA people are ready to make the same mistake … there’s been nothing in the popular culture to inoculate them [against Communism],” Judge says.